


Mourning

by respoftw



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Grief, M/M, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 02:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18129929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Finn attends his first memorial for a fallen member of the Resistance three weeks after he wakes up. It’s a new concept to him; this mourning of a lost life, this celebration of a person who is no longer with them.





	Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> Orignally published on tumblr 5 March 2016

Finn attends his first memorial for a fallen member of the Resistance three weeks after he wakes up. It’s a new concept to him; this mourning of a lost life, this celebration of a person who is no longer with them.

The memorial is beautiful, Finn watches in awe as a hundred lanterns float upwards into the night sky, the golden light almost eclipsing the stars.

It’s warming to think that there will be people doing this for him some day, that he’ll be remembered. That his life matters.

Captain Phasma’s words echo in his head, her cold voice stating that a fallen soldier means the Order is spared their weakness, that a real Stormtrooper has no room for sympathy.

The realisation crashes into him. No-one would mourn Slip. No-one would celebrate Slip’s life. His body had been left on Jakku to suffer the mercy of any survivors, or be taken by the sand.

He tells this all to Poe later that night as they wrap around each other, needing the reassurance that they’re both still here, still alive.

Poe kisses the tears from his cheeks and rests his forehead against Finn’s own.

“You deserve to mourn him,” he says softly before pulling Finn up and pushing him out the door.

-

Finn and Poe stand outside the hangar doors and watch as a solitary lantern floats lazily into the blackness.

Slip wasn’t his friend, not really. Finn had never been one of them - no matter how often he had insisted to the others that Slip was “one of us.” There had never been an ‘us’ that included Finn, not even with Slip.

Still, Finn feels a heavy weight lift from his chest as the lantern drifts into a speck of light.

Poe’s comforting presence beside him is welcome. Smiling, he realises that he is part of an ‘us’ now. He belongs here.

He wishes Slip had been allowed that feeling just once.

“Goodbye.”


End file.
